Back on the street, Frank saw a dark gray Jaguar parked beside the ambulance at the crime scene. As they got closer, he spotted Anthony Upton, the medical examiner. A tall, angular man, Upton was directing technicians to position a folding gurney by the Taurus’s open driver’s-side door.

“Nice night, Tony,” Frank said.

Upton looked around and smiled.

Frank avoided looking into the car. Even so, the blood-copper smell reached out for him.

“Messy,” he said. As if it’s ever neat. He said it to have something to say, because if he didn’t, he’d have to take another look inside.

“Shooter shot through the closed window,” Upton said. “Slugs carried a lot of glass in with them.”

“You see his buddy?”

Upton dismissed the question with a shrug. “He was alive.”

“Restricted clientele?”

Upton nodded. “I got enough business with the dead ones, Frank.”

Two techs had the white plastic body bag open on the gurney beside the car. The bigger tech reached in and easily lifted Hodges by the shoulders. He had the corpse halfway out of the car when his smooth motion jerked to a stop.

“Foot’s caught,” Upton said.

The tech heaved.

Frank heard a splintering snap. The tech stumbled back, the corpse in his arms trailing blood and brains.

“Muthafucka,” the tech muttered. He recovered his footing. In a graceful ballroom maneuver, he swung and dipped, dropping his partner onto the gurney, faceup. Everything above the eyebrows was missing. Beneath the dark cavity, the eyes and mouth were wide open.

“Surprised, Skeeter?” Jose asked.

“Slugs exited the front,” Upton said. “Probably somewhere inside the car.”

Jose sat in the driver’s seat, slapping the wheel in a slow funereal beat.

Upton had left in his Jag, following the meat wagon. He and Frank had inventoried, photographed, measured and sketched, and scoured the area for evidence, and an hour later, they were watching the forensic techs wrapping up the crime scene. The department wrecker was hooking up the Taurus. Tomorrow, all that’d be left would be glass on the street from the shot-up car. The glass would stay awhile, but eventually it would be gone too.